The Thing (1982) on Netflix
R19821h 49mHorrorMysterySci-Fi
A sled dog chased by a Norwegian helicopter reaches an Antarctic research station. The station's pilot, R. J. MacReady, learns the dog is an alien that absorbs and imitates living things.
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Trailer
Plot summary
An American research station in Antarctica receives an unexpected visitor: a sled dog pursued by a Norwegian helicopter. The passenger fumbles a grenade and dies with the helicopter, and the pilot, firing at the dog, is shot by Garry, the station commander. R. J. MacReady and Dr. Copper take the station's helicopter to the Norwegian camp and return with the charred remains of a malformed humanoid. Blair, the biologist, finds ordinary human organs inside. Clark kennels the dog; it soon changes shape and absorbs several of the station's dogs before Childs burns it with a flamethrower. Blair's autopsy of the creature leads him to conclude it can imitate any living thing, and a computer simulation shows the organism could consume all life on Earth.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Thing (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Rob Bottin, then 21, was hospitalized for exhaustion, double pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer during production; he had spent over a year living on the Universal lot making the creature effects, sleeping on the sets and taking no days off.
SPOILER
To film the Norris-Thing's chest turning into a mouth that severs Dr. Copper's arms, Rob Bottin recruited a double amputee fitted with prosthetic arms filled with wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O, which the mechanical jaws clamped down on and tore off.- After the release, Wilbur Stark sued Universal for $43 million for slander, breach of contract, fraud and deceit, alleging he lost money because the studio failed to credit him properly, and later sued for a further $15 million over producer David Foster's response.
- On December 2, 1981, as about 100 American and Canadian crew members traveled to the shoot near Stewart, British Columbia, their bus slid in the snow toward the unprotected edge of the road, nearly sending it down a 500 ft embankment.
- Keith David broke his hand in a car accident the day before he was due to begin shooting as Childs; sent to hospital, he returned with two pins in it, wearing a surgical glove beneath a black glove painted to resemble his complexion.
SPOILER
Rather than build a new set, producer Stuart Cohen suggested reusing the destroyed American research camp as the ruined Norwegian camp, saving the production a further $250,000.- Richard Masur turned down a role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to play the dog handler Clark in The Thing.
- The Thing's poor performance cost John Carpenter the directing job on the 1984 film Firestarter, and Universal bought him out of the multiple-film contract his earlier success had earned him.
